South Island Royals defused by Rockets

November 3, 2013, Victoria, BC (ISN) – On a Sunday morning at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre, the South Island Royals took on the Okanagan Rockets in the finale of two weekend games. The Royals gave Chris Smith the start in net, while the Rockets countered with Brendan Barry.

South Island collected the game’s first goal early into the first frame. On the man advantage a loose puck found its way to the stick of Kayden Peck at the bottom of the right face-off circle. The Royals’ forward spun towards the goal and put a backhand shot through the legs of Barry for the 1-0 advantage. Okanagan responded only minutes later as Tanner Wishnowski rifled home a two-on-one pass from Linden Hora. The Rockets took their first lead of the game halfway through the stanza on a goal from Mahlon Head. After some sustained pressure in the South Island zone, the puck came to Head in the slot who buried a quick shot over the glove of Smith. The scoreclock read 2-1in favor of Okanagan after 20 minutes of play.

The Rockets looked to stake themselves to a two goal advantage five minutes into the middle period as Cory Santoro tried to finish off an odd man rush, but his shot rang off the Royals’ crossbar. However, with four minutes remaining in the stanza, Head collected his second of the contest to make it 3-1. The Okanagan forward circled behind the South Island net before he snuck a shot between Smith and the left post. Duncan Cochrane responded with 32 second left on the clock to pull the Royals within one. On a powerplay, Cochrane burst down the right side and roofed a backhand over the glove of the Rockets’ netminder as the score read 3-2 for Okanagan after two periods of play.

Tanner Campbell restored the Rockets two goal lead seven minutes into the final period as he finished off a quick tic-tac-toe play from the slot. Okanagan’s Carter Hikichi then added the Rockets’ fifth after he sniped a shot over the blocker of Smith from the top of the left face-off circle. Santoro added a late empty net goal as Okanagan skated to the win. Rockets 6 Royals 2

South Island will now welcome the Cariboo Cougars for two games next weekend. Game one will take place on Saturday, November 9th at 4:30 p.m. with game two the next morning at 9:45 a.m. Both games will take place at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre.

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